Journeying through the elements

Hi Moss Streeters and designBridgers!

This week we worked towards unifying our ideas into one scheme and met with Jen and Peggy from Moss Street for some feedback.

The concept for the whole site is a journey through the elements. And so kids will travel through zones that emphasize earth, sun, wind, and water. One of the really exciting ideas is that there will be a hill that the kids can hike up in the southeast corner. The hill is planted with food and natives. At the top, the path passes through a hut-like enclosure made from living reeds or tall grasses. Behind the structure we are looking at using native plants to create a small area of Pacific Northwest rainforest with ferns and vine maples.

Speaking of the structure. We took a cue from Dr. Seuss for the form and are thinking of this class room as the place where all the elements meet. In this iteration, we looked at Truffula Trees. With playfully canted vertical posts supporting simple roofs that drain into rain barrels. (check out the photos...it'll make more sense).

Our meeting with the Moss people was really positive. It seems that they are happy with the direction we are going and made some helpful suggestions as to the structure. They'd like to see us integrated the tree into the structure and also to have a more circular form (a la the Story Spiral form).

So what we need from you now is IDEAS! Take a look at the photos of our model, and tell us what you think. Another great thing you can do is to come visit us in studio--PAC 218 (next to the dB office.) We'd love to have more input and more iterations. Each member of the team will be coming in to Wednesday's studio with a new iteration of the classroom structure. We'll probably all be spending plenty of time there in coming days so please, stop by and work with us. Or at least check out what we're up to and give a crit!

Also, this week's meeting will happen on Wednesday from 5:30-6:30PM in PAC 218. We know it's a busy term but this will be so much better of a project with continued involvement of the whole team!

Cheers!